The future of social prescribing in England - commissioning, demonstrating quality and next steps for policy

The conference takes place following the commitment by the Government, within the Loneliness strategy, to support the implementation of social prescribing in all local health and care systems by 2023 - and with social prescribing as one of the 10 high-impact actions within the General Practice Forward View.

It will also be an opportunity to discuss the best practice guide to social prescribing due to be published later this year by NHS England, as well as the launch of an online platform for commissioners and practitioners - a National Academy for Social Prescribing, and the piloting of new accredited learning programmes for social prescribing link workers in early 2019.

Delegates will discuss future governance arrangements, as well as issues around payment options for social prescriptions.

They will also consider latest evidence of the expected impacts from social prescribing schemes, looking at quality assurance, workforce training requirements, and what more can be done to ensure equity of access.

Further sessions assess the sustainability of social prescribing schemes in the face of pressures on local public health budgets - and on GPs and their colleagues within primary care in terms of time and other competing demands and the benchmarking of local schemes.